Best Jem Carstairs Quotes & Sayings

Will: "You are not really dying, are you?"
Jem: "So they tell me."
Will: "I am sorry."
Jem: "No. Don't be ordinary like that. Don't say you're sorry. Say you'll train with me."
Will: "I'll train with you. — Cassandra Clare

Jem's knees gave out, and he sank to the trunk at the foot of his bed, still playing. He played Will breathing the name Cecily, and he played himself watching the glint of his own ring on Tessa's hand on the train from York, knowing it was all a charade, knowing, too, that he wished that it wasn't. He played the sorrow in Tessa's eyes when she had come into the music room after Will had told her she would never have children. Unforgivable, that, what a thing to do, and yet Jem had forgiven him. Love was forgiveness, he had always believed that, and the things that Will did, he did out of some bottomless well of pain. Jem did not know the source of that pain, but he knew it existed and was real, knew it as he knew of the inevitability of his own death, knew it as he knew that he had fallen in love with Tessa Gray and that there was nothing he or anyone else could do about it. — Cassandra Clare

I promise to charm the dickens out of him,' said Will, sitting up and readjusting his crushed hat. 'I shall charm him with such force that when I am done, he will be left lying limply on the ground, trying to remember his own name.'
'The man's eighty-nine', muttered Jem. 'He may well have the problem anyway. — Cassandra Clare

To his children, Will showed the same love he had always shown to her, fierce and unyielding. And the same protectiveness he had only ever showed to one other person: the person James had been named after. Will's parabatai, Jem. — Cassandra Clare

Jem is nothing but goodness. That he struck you last night only shows how capable you are of driving even saints to madness. — Cassandra Clare

Will: 'Singing the praises of our fair city? We treat you well here, don't we, James? I doubt I'd have that kind of luck in Shanghai. What do you call us there again?'
Jem: 'Yang guizi ... foreign devils. — Cassandra Clare

If there is a life after this one, he said, let me meet you in it, James Carstairs. — Cassandra Clare

Trains are great dirty smoky things," said Will. "You won't like it."
Tessa was unmoved. "I won't know if I like it until I try it, will I?"
"I've never swum naked in the Thames before, but I know I wouldn't like it."
"But think how entertaining for sightseers," said Tessa, and she saw Jem duck his head to hide the quick flash of his grin. — Cassandra Clare

Remember when you tried to convince me to feed a poultry pie to the mallards in the park to see if you could breed a race of cannibal ducks?"
"They ate it too," Will reminisced. "Bloodthirsty little beasts. Never trust a duck. — Cassandra Clare

He wanted to run to her, wrap her in his arms. Protect her. But it was Jem's place to do those things, not his. Not his. -Will Herondale — Cassandra Clare

You cannot reduce the situation to worm jokes, Will. This is Gabriel and Gideon's father we're discussing."
"We're not just discussing him; we're chasing him through an ornamental sculpture garden because he's turned into a worm. — Cassandra Clare

So you are dying for love, then, Will said finally, his voice sounding constricted to his own ears.
'Dying a little faster for love. And there are worse things to die for. — Cassandra Clare

Jem cried out with all his remaining strength. You cannot go where I am going! Nor would I want that for you! — Cassandra Clare

Whatever you are physically ... male or female, strong or weak, ill or healthy
all those things matter less than what your heart contains. If you have the soul of a warrior, you are a warrior. All those other things, they are the glass that contains the lamp, but you are the light inside. — Cassandra Clare

She did not belong to Will-she was too much herself to belong to anyone, even Jem-but she belonged with them, and silently he cursed the Consul for not seeing it. — Cassandra Clare

A sort of good-bye without saying good-bye," he said. "It is a reference to a passage in the Bible. 'And Mizpah, for he said, the Lord watch between me and thee when we are absent one from another. — Cassandra Clare

But I will never have a bride. — Cassandra Clare

There is more to living than not dying. — Cassandra Clare

Astriola. That IS demon pox. You had evidence that demon pox existed and you didnt mention it to me! Et tu, Brute!' He rolled up the paper and hit Jem over the head with it. — Cassandra Clare

Jem spoke with enormous care; talking to Will about anything personal was like trying not to startle away a wild animal. — Cassandra Clare

I always loved you, Will, whatever you did. And now I need you to do for me what I cannot do for myself. For you to be my eyes when I do not have them. For you to be my hands when I cannot use my own. For you to be my hear when mine is done with beating.
No, said Will wildly. No, no, no. I will not be those things. Your eyes will see, your hands will feel, your hear will continue to beat.
But if not, Will-
If I could tear myself in half, I would-that half of me might remain with you and half follow Tessa-
Half of you would be no good to either of us, said Jem. — Cassandra Clare

When Will truly wants something," said Jem, quietly, "when he feels something - he can break your heart. — Cassandra Clare

James reared up from his bed and threw himself into Uncle Jem's arms. He had heard some people found the Silent Brothers frightening, with their silent speech and their stitched eyes, but to him the sight of a Silent Brother's robe always meant Uncle Jem, always meant steadfast love. — Cassandra Clare

Dreams can be dangerous things. — Cassandra Clare

This ... this ... thing?"
"A parsnip?" Jem suggested
"A parsnip planted in satan's own garden," said Will. He glanced about. "I dont suppose there's a dog I could feed it to?"
"There dont seem to be any pets about," Jem-who loved animals, even the inglorious and ill-tempered Church-observed.
"Probably all poisened by parsnips," said Will. — Cassandra Clare

I love you so much, so incredibly much," he went on, "and I forget when you're close to me, I forget who you are. I forget that you're Jem's. I'd have to be the worst sort of person to think what I'm thinking right now. But I am thinking it. — Cassandra Clare

When two souls are as one, they stay together on the Wheel. I was born into this world to love you, and I will love you in the next life, and the one after that." ~Jem Carstairs — Cassandra Clare

I am no longer a Silent Brother," he said. "Only an ordinary man. My name is James, James Carstairs. But everyone calls me Jem. — Cassandra Clare

She smiled. Her skin looked whiter than he recalled, and dark spidery veins were beginning to show beneath its surface. Her hair was still the color of spun silver and her eyes were still green as a cat's. She was still beautiful. Looking at her, he was in London again. He saw the gaslight and smelled the smoke and dirt and horses, the metallic tang of fog, the flowers in Kew Gardens. He saw a boy with black hair and blue eyes like Alec's, heard violin music like the sound of silver water. He saw a girl with long brown hair and a serious face. In a world where everything went away from him eventually, she was one of the few remaining constants.
And then there was Camille. — Cassandra Clare

Reparations," said Jem very suddenly, setting down the pen he was holding.
Will looked at him in puzzlement. "Is this a game? We just blurt out whatever word comes next to mind? In that case mine is 'genuphobia'. It means an unreasonable fear of knees."
"What's the word for a perfectly reasonable fear of annoying idiots?" inquired Jessamine. — Cassandra Clare